What is Neuro-Linguistic Programming?

Basically, NLP is a series of techniques that offer you a way to put your mind and body to work to gain superiority in learning, relationships, sports and other life events.

The program was developed by John Grinder and Richard Bandler in the early seventies. In the beginning NLP was hailed as a fantastic break-through, but since then it has been surrounded with controversy from some who say that there is no scientific evidence to support the claims made by the creators of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

The program is more a series of tools that can be used as opposed to being based on theory. The way it works is that the tools are created by using experiences and behavior from those who are successful at the activity in question and creating a model from it, then it is then used to train others to mimic the behavior in the same way.

The Neuro-Linguistic Programming techniques are based on several models and the major ones usually represented are as follows:

1. Eye Cues: According to the proponents of Neuro-Linguistic Programming the movement of your eyes can indicate if you are thinking through sounds, images or through feelings. It is believed that if the eyes go upward then images are being visualized while movement horizontally indicates thoughts of sounds.

2. Meta: This model consists of a set of questions and/or language patterns that are created to contest the speaker’s pattern of the world.

3. Meta-program: This consists of how people process information and come to a decision. Some people will gravitate toward a goal while others will move away from things that are not goals.

4. Sensory Acuity: Thought patterns are closely tied to physiology. The thought process can change the physiological state. Acuity that is sufficiently sensitive can help someone that is communicating to fine tune it to a person above just mere linguistics.

5. Milton Model: This consists of a group of linguistic patterns that were used by Milton Erickson to bring on trance-like states in people.

6. Submodality: The organization of the internal representation is what will determine the individual response to the content. For instance, a person may imagine someone that they have feelings for, they are then told to make the colors intense as if they were changing the color control on a television. They are then told to turn the color back to black and white. In most individuals color will increase feelings while the black and white will neutralize it.

There are others as well, and NLP is not just limited to what you are reading here, but this gives you a good idea of just what Neuro-Linguistic Programming is.

Proponents absolutely insist that this program is highly useful, and there is in fact a 20 day certification course available as an addendum to a person’s chosen profession, and the program is widely used today.

Though it is criticized by some, who insist that there is no scientific basis from which the program has been developed, there are many successful users of NLP who would disagree.